Pretty Kite
injured,
trampled into salt battered stone;
lone, unloved
today’s sweepings
left for trash.
I’ll detangle your tail,
unknot your ribbons,
your strangled cord,
lay you
smiling faced neon
over sun hotted weed.
Lurch shake kite,
cloud billow fill,
wind bound loop over and above;
sun streamered dragon,
slink over sand,
euphoria blissful, revitalize.
Whenever I look up into the sky and see your bright beauty,
I wish I could be you,
gleaming happiness in the dark, vile regions of the night.
Life has slowed considerably and is peaceful. It’s stupid that it takes something massive happening to you to make you put your feet up good and proper and to reflect. A couple of weeks ago I was grappling with the idea of going back home and getting back into life. I suffered many sleepness, anxious nights. What if I went back and started to get anxious again and couldn’t cope?
Then whilst I was sorting through some work I came across an e-mail a friend sent me at the beginning of the year It was a quote by Theodore Roosevelt from his speech, “Citizenship in a Republic at the Sorbonne in Paris in April, 1910:
“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is not effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.“
It hit me like a truck. I haven’t been on the wrong track. The person “out there” doing battle is cool – out there doing the their darndest for something they consider worth while, even if things do seem to keep ending in defeat, at least they’ve done their utmost.
My Chemical Romance’s set at Reading this year made me think much the same thing. The first time they played there they were bottled off and though initially discouraged in the end, it only made Gerard more determined. Taking Freddie Mercury as inspiration – it also happened to him in Paris with Queen – when they next played there Gerard vowed it would be as headliners. And so it proved to be. And their show was utterly incredible – don’t think I’ve seen anyone put so much into one performance – it was passionate, it was outrageously OTT, sexy bombastic and darn good fun – even they consider it to be the show of their lifetime.
As for me – I’m saying no to doubt and what the future will bring, it might well become a self fulfilling prophecy. I’m getting back into life and not looking back, keeping focused on the things that build me up. I’ll keep going forward with hope and courage.
It’s hard to believe the last time I wrote on here I was thrilling about sickly cup cakes, I feel like I would throw up if I ate one today. Come July, I’d been working furiously for ages, trying to wrestle the last six chapters of “State of my Heart” to the ground; I was stressed and anxious, though I was drinking so many cups of coffee I didn’t notice how I was feeling. The last week of last month was especially bad: To say it was crap is something of an understatement.
A few weeks down the line, after a week’s stay in hospital and enforced rest at my parents and still not ready yet to get back into my “normal life” and despite the queasy feeling on my stomach I am going to reflect on what I thought before I got ill – God willing – it will speed up my recovery. This is what I was thinking at the height of “Tour De France” mania on July 18th:
This morning I was about on the computer this morning in a rage and found what I wrote almost a year ago (What makes late summer so impossible?) “What to Do if You Think You’re Falling Apart”:
‘1. You carry on. Say to “hell with it, I’m going to carry on doing what I’m doing, and ignore everything else.
2. Or you give up. Go and jump off a bridge or a tall building or something.
I don’t see the point in the latter so what about the first?’ See link.
And I went on to quote Mark Cavendish. Well, I suppose there’s no ignoring one’s own advice! Though I think the Dutch cyclist Johnny Hoogerland from this year’s Tour De France sums up things well this year. He bravely carried on with what is reckoned to be one of the hardest races in the world, despite being ripped to shreds after falling into a barbed wire.
“The Tour de France has been a dream of mine for ten years,” Hoogerland pointed out. “I have to keep on smiling. I’m still in the race, so why would I cry?” See link
Thirty three stiches – ouch excruciating – and he not only kept the polka dot jersey for a couple of days he completed the entire 3,430.5 kilometres of the twenty one stage race.
Rudyard Kipling also had something valuable to say on the matter:
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’
The caption on my fridge.
All things considered, it’s been a rough few months. I haven’t felt connected to anyone or anything. Been writing madly, as if trying to write myself out of a hole. Which I think I am, maybe: miserable weather, endless doubt and confusion about what I’m meant to be doing or if I’ll ever be good enough, crippled back, stomach bug that won’t go away, things ending, choppy relationships.
In the midst of my bad back crisis, I blagged a lift from Mr. F and staggered up the steps to City Hall to see Mr. Wainwright.
It resembled nothing so much as an elaborate funeral for his beloved mother, Kate McGarrigle (who died in January.) The lights were dim, we were told not to applaud and there he was, sliding silently onto a bare stage, seventeen foot train trailing behind him, feathered, be-jewelled, grieving. His accompaniments were fiercely complicated, like mini piano concertos, as though he was trying to make it as hard on himself as possible, his voice rose and soared to reach impossible notes, showing no signs of strain. A giant eye – his – appeared on the black screen behind him; at one point tears began falling from it. The eeriest hush, laid across the audience.
Photo by Kasia Bobula. Shot at the Sadler’s Wells Theatre in London.
That night those songs were in my dreams. I felt calmer than I had in weeks, which is quite bizarre. How can something so melancholy create happiness? I don’t know but I’ll hold that thought. Mr Wainwrights’ new album is “All Days are Nights” but I’m renaming it: “All Nights are Days.”
When things are rubbish, I’ll think of it. How does the saying go? “The darkest time is just before the dawn.” Isn’t it when you’re on the verge of breaking through into your dream that you hit rock bottom? Or to put it another way: “Never, never, never give up.” (Winston Churchill.) What a mess we’d be in now if he had! So anyone out there who’s struggling with their dream (self included) :Don’t give up.
The other day, whilst I was scanning idly through Google images I came across this extraordinary picture of Jeff Buckley.
OK so it’s an old one. I’m often late to cotton on. I only “discovered” him the year before last. He was the ideal soundtrack to my Indian travels. (I can’t hear Dream Brother without being back on that balcony looking out over the lake in Udaipur or the night mail train to Gujarat.)
Zachary Blue wore wings too, on stage. It made Elizabeth believe he was an angel. A year or two after I realized this about Zak, I started finding lots of photos of people wearing wings. Only the best folks have them, I think. The most fantastical, dreamer-like, genius type people. Guys and girls who seem to live outside of this world.
I wish I could have wings too. I could flap my arms and fly away from everything. Novel writing is much harder than I thought it was going to be.
"Success is not final,
failure isn't fatal,
it's the courage to continue that really counts."
(Winston Churchill)
Hey vio-let bro, sonic blurring, mind funk whirring, guitar spurring, beaux – I think I must love you; for my age, I’m too young don’t fit in my school; still I know a star when it’s earth far flung – you’ve learned me the notion of cool. Hi, lavender youth, wink me a grin. Sky spirited no limited kin, guitar guild that light […]
Gone all out demon slayer, whole self sold; sprinting surely, streaming smooth – hell bash bam, betrayed! No siren or notification, to re-strike, no time or to withold. On the floor, fiend fighter, vision skewing, limbs spilt wrong. Can’t uprise or self utter, can’t figure what just passed or what you should have done – to have cursed, or mere blamed, to have ran […]
This beautiful poem is a guest post by my friend Dot, who has just lost her beloved – and beautiful dog, Josh: I went to the dog’s home to get me a pet, when a pup with long legs jumped in my arms the minute we met! Oh no, not you, you’re not for me, […]
Pretty Kite injured, trampled into salt battered stone; lone, unloved today’s sweepings left for trash. I’ll detangle your tail, unknot your ribbons, your strangled cord, lay you smiling faced neon over sun hotted weed. Lurch shake kite, cloud billow fill, wind bound loop over and above; sun streamered dragon, slink over sand, euphoria blissful, revitalize.
Silence tomorrow, Exit yesterday, I’m living for the now, For what I’ve here in my hands, today.
